ike Babylon tapestry rich.
Numidian guinea-fowls, capons, all perish for thee:
And even the wandering stork, welcome guest that he is,
The emblem of sacred maternity, slender of leg
And gloctoring exile from winter, herald of spring,
Still, finds his last nest in the--cauldron of gluttony base.
India surrenders her pearls; and what mean they to thee?
That thy wife decked with sea-spoils adorning her breast
and her head
On the couch of a stranger lies lifting adulterous legs?
The emerald green, the glass bauble, what mean they to thee?
Or the fire of the ruby? Except that pure chastity shine
From the depth of the jewels: in garments of woven wind clad
Our brides might as well take their stand, their game
naked to stalk,
As seek it in gossamer tissue transparent as air."

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SIXTH.

"What should we say was the hardest calling, after literature?" he asked.
"That of the doctor or that of the money-changer, I would say: the
doctor, because he has to know what poor devils have got in their
insides, and when the fever's due: but I hate them like the devil, for my
part, because they're always ordering me on a diet of duck soup: and the
money-changer's, because he's got to be able to see the silver through
the copper plating. When we come to the dumb beasts, the oxen and sheep
are the hardest worked, the oxen, thanks to whose labor we have bread to
chew on, the sheep, because their wool tricks us out so fine. It's the
greatest outrage under the sun for people to eat mutton and then wear a
tunic. Then there's the bee: in my opinion, they're divine insects
because they puke honey, though there are folks that claim that they
bring it from Jupiter, and that's the reason they sting, too, for
wherever you find a sweet, you'll find a bitter too." He was just putting
the philosophers out of business when lottery tickets were passed around
in a cup. A slave boy assigned to that duty read aloud the names of the
souvenirs: "Silver s--ham," a ham was brought in with some silver vinegar
cruets on top of it; "cervical"--something soft for the neck--a piece of
the cervix--neck--of a sheep was brought in; "serisapia"--after wit--"and
contumelia"--insult--we were given must wafers and an apple-melon--and a
phallus--contus--; "porri"--leeks--"and persica," he picked up a whip and
a knife; "passeres"--sparrows" and a fly--trap," the an